Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Paul Theroux retraces the steps he took thirty years ago in his classic The Great Railway Bazaar. From the Eurostar in London, he once again sets out on a journey to the East, travelling overland through Eastern Europe, India and Asia. Infused with the changes that have shaped the exterior landscape and enriched with developments to his own perceptions and psychology, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is an absorbing and beautifully written follow-up to The Great Railway Bazaar.

The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari

A final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye and effortless prose have brought the world to generations of fans. Journeying alone, in what he feels will be his last African journey, Paul Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from both the itineraries of tourists and the hopes of post-colonial independence movements. Having travelled down the right-hand side of Africa in Dark Star Safari, he sets out this time from Cape Town, heading northward up the left-hand side, through South Africa and Namibia, to Botswana, heading for the Congo, in search of the end of the line.

Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads

Paul Theroux has spent 50 years crossing the globe, adventuring in the exotic, seeking the rich history and folklore of the far away. Now, for the first time, in his 10th travel book, Theroux explores a piece of America - the Deep South.

Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Britian

American-born Paul Theroux had lived in England for 11 years when he realized he'd explored dozens of exotic locations without discovering anything about his adopted home. So, with a knapsack on his back, he set out to explore by walking and by short train trips. The result is a witty, observant and often acerbic look at an ever eccentric assortments of Brits in all shapes and sizes.

Shadow of the Silk Road

Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.

The Mosquito Coast

Allie Fox is going to re-create the world. Abominating the cops, crooks, junkies and scavengers of modern America, he abandons civilization and takes the family to live in the Honduran jungle. There his tortured, messianic genius keeps them alive, his hoarse tirades harrying them through a diseased and dirty Eden towards unimaginable darkness.

Travels in Siberia

Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the 40-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs. The book brims with Mongols, half-crazed Orthodox archpriests, fur seekers, ambassadors of the czar bound for Peking, tea caravans, German scientists, American prospectors, intrepid English nurses, and prisoners and exiles of every kind....

The Wonder Trail: True Stories from Los Angeles to the End of the World

Steve Hely, writer for The Office and American Dad!, and recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, presents a travel book about his journey through Central and South America. Part travel book, part pop history, part comic memoir, Hely's writing will make listeners want to reach for their backpacks and hiking boots.

On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads

Guided by a Kazakh aphorism - "To understand the wolf, you must put the skin of a wolf on and look through its eyes" - adventurer Tim Cope undertook a journey not successfully completed since the days of Genghis Khan: He traveled by horseback across the entire length of the Eurasian steppe, from the ancient capital of Mongolia to the Danube River in Hungary.

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain

In 1995, Bill Bryson got into his car and took a weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England before moving his family back to the United States. The book about that trip, Notes from a Small Island, is uproarious and endlessly endearing, one of the most acute and affectionate portrayals of England in all its glorious eccentricity ever written. Two decades later, he set out again to rediscover that country, and the result is The Road to Little Dribbling.

Jupiter's Travels

On October 6, 1973, Ted Simon knew there was no going back. He loaded up his 500cc Triumph Tiger in the pouring rain and said good-bye to London. Over four years he rode 64,000 miles round the world. Breakdowns, revolutions, war, a spell in prison, and a Californian commune were all part of his experience, which was colored variously by utter despair and unimaginable joy. He was treated as a spy, a god, a welcome stranger and a curiosity

The Panama Papers: How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money

Late one evening investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500 million in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.

Indonesia, Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation

Bewitched by Indonesia for twenty-five years, Elizabeth Pisani recently traveled 26,000 miles around the archipelago in search of the links that bind this impossibly disparate nation. Fearless and funny, Pisani shares her deck space with pigs and cows, bunks down in a sulfurous volcano, and takes tea with a corpse. Along the way, she observes Big Men with child brides, debates corruption and cannibalism, and ponders "sticky" traditions that cannot be erased.

Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl's fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands, and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated, and inaccurate stories.

An Economic History of the World since 1400

Most of us have a limited understanding of the powerful role economics has played in shaping human civilization. This makes economic history - the study of how civilizations structured their environments to provide food, shelter, and material goods - a vital lens through which to think about how we arrived at our present, globalized moment. Designed to fill a long-empty gap in how we think about modern history, these 48 lectures are a comprehensive journey through more than 600 years of economic history.

Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World

Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death. In 1864, Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the southern end of the island. Utterly alone in a dense coastal forest, plagued by stinging blowflies and relentless rain, Captain Musgrave inspires his men to take action.

Following the Equator: A Journey around the World

Bound on a lecture trip around the world, Mark Twain turns his keen satiric eye to foreign lands in Following the Equator. This vivid chronicle of a sea voyage on the Pacific Ocean displays Twain's eye for the unusual, his wide-ranging curiosity, and his delight in embellishing the facts. Following the Equator is an evocative and highly unique American portrait of 19-century travel and customs.

Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days

In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. The rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg.

Publisher's Summary

The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's account of his epic journey by rail through Asia. Filled with evocative names of legendary train routes - the Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Hikari Super Express to Kyoto, and the Trans-Siberian Express - it describes the many places, cultures, sights, and sounds he experienced and the fascinating people he met.

Here he overhears snippets of chat and occasional monologues, and is drawn into conversation with fellow passengers, from Molesworth, a British theatrical agent, and Sadik, a shabby Turkish tycoon, while avoiding the forceful approaches of pimps and drug dealers. This wonderfully entertaining travelogue pays loving tribute to the romantic joys of railways and train travel.

This audiobook was a true pleasure. Frank Muller's narration was pitch perfect at every turn, from his delivery of a Tamil man criticizing the New Delhi elites, to his performance of Theroux's own sometimes understated, sometimes exasperated, sardonic wit.

The greatest pleasure of this travel account is it's subjectivity! Theroux is so frank about his likes and dislikes, his expectations and disappointments, you really connect with his assessments, even if you don't agree with them.

Also, this book is funny as hell. I laughed out loud commuting on the subway, walking in the park, or sitting on my couch. I looked forward to every minute of listening, and I often backed up just to listen to a conversation a second or third time.

Definitely my top listen of 2015 (and I've listened to over 20 books so far this year!).

A great travel adventure, written at a time when crossing the globe was a much more challenging experience. Will resonate with anyone who's embarked on a voyage across cultures.

What did you like best about this story?

It reminded me of what I love about freeform travel

What about Frank Muller’s performance did you like?

The narrator was excellent - when the accents seem natural and quietly add to the appreciation of the story, rather than being something that you notice outright, then the narrator has done their job well.

For those who think he is callus or jaded in his writings then you are a tourist not a traveler. If you want sunshine and resorts watch the Travel Channel. Traveling is not about package tours. Traveling is about experiencing life and sometimes it is ruff.

This was the book that made Paul famous. It isn't as long as the newer Ghost Train To The Eastern Star, which is also a revisit of this classic Paul Theroux. The description evoke vivid imagery throughout the fast paced trip. The narrator, however was a bit too fast paced. I would have been happier had he slowed down long enough for me to digest Paul's descriptive writing. I have taken the trains in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Sri Lanka. All are as dilapidated as Paul says they are, but they are cheap, slow and comfortable. A few of the Chinese trains are very sleek and clean now. The characters are what made these train books so great. I have to wonder if some of them aren't fictional. I met a few interesting people on the trains, but it was mostly traveling salesmen in China. I can speak fairly well, so interacting with the locals is what the train adventure is all about.

First, Frank Muller is my favorite narrator. Paul Theroux is a gifted author who writing in the general "travel" genre does not bore us with the silly and expected details of long waits in line that are the norm of travel. He does not bore us with the grandeur of the taj mahal, but instead focuses on the people along the way which opens the culture to us. What a gift.

What did you like best about this story?

The way that the author engaged the people wherever he went opening for us his take on the way people think and why.

The narrator of this story made it all come to life and it felt as though I was on the train travelling alongside and could smell and feel all the pleasures and discomforts afforded to the traveller. I have purchased the second part his return and already it has highlighted how the passing of time along with age makes you value and appreciate different things even after compensating and making allowances for memories being a ghost train and bringing about a sense of melancholy sense of loss.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

paul

Swindon, United Kingdom

1/26/13

Overall

"Intensely irritating narration"

Sadly the narration of this book ruined it for me , we where introduced to more and more characters as the story progressed their accents never sounded natural.and became intensely irritating

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Rn Francis

8/26/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Classic travel book"

Read this years ago in the heyday of my own travelling days.I was not a massive fan back then, but re-reading/listening I enjoyed it much more this time.

The narrator did a decent job, though made most of the Westerners sound more than a bit grumpy.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

oliver

Wallingford, United Kingdom

3/26/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Not the best audible book"

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The story itself didn't grab me as his other books have. Paul appears to be bored himself during this journey which comes across, with a sense of apathy.

What will your next listen be?

not sure at this point

Would you be willing to try another one of Frank Muller’s performances?

Maybe

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Boredom

Any additional comments?

n/a

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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